1980s

January 08, 2015

About two-thirds of the way through Govind Nihalani's Ardh satya, a retired rural cop (Amrish Puri) laments the difficulties that his son, Anant Velankar (Om Puri), is having as an urban police officer in Bombay. The senior Velankar paces, distraught and muttering. He taught his son how to conduct an "encounter" without leaving marks that could support brutality charges. And he urged his son not to move to the city - in the countryside, he thinks, it's much easier to work out deals and cover-ups when things do go pear-shaped. In the city, there is too much pressure and too much oversight.

The senior Velankar is himself a violent, abusive man, and the son he raised did not want to be anything like him. Anant wanted to study philosophy, not join the police force. And having joined the force to appease his rageful, controlling father, he wants to do the job well and with integrity. As a young Bombay police inspector, though, Anant's idealism is quickly broken as he learns what the rules of the game that cops and gangsters play really are.

Anant's struggle with the truths and half-truths about the operation of evil in that society form the core of Ardh satya's bleak and sad and riveting study. The film is not merely an exposé of police corruption and misconduct - it's likely that Nihalani's audience would have been all too aware of such happenings and would not have needed them exposed. What makes the film so powerful is what it reveals about the toll these realities take on a human being who wants to rise above them but, being merely human, struggles to find the strength to do so.

Anant's superiors dance to the tune of the local gang boss, Rama Shetty (a chillingly charismatic Sadashiv Amrapurkar), a Bal-Thackeray-like figure who both runs illegal gambling and smuggling operations, and runs for political office. Anant arrests some of Shetty's men, and is appalled to see Shetty have them released with a single phone call. Soon after, Shetty extends an invitation to Anant, offering a sort of deal where each can benefit from the other's position.

Both Amrapurkar and Puri do intense things with their eyes.

Anant refuses, in disbelief and disgust. Still, while he won't make openly corrupt material deals with crime bosses, Anant is no shining Dudley-Doright type; the violent temper he got from his father and a tendency to overdo the brutality in encounters gets him into trouble with his superiors, even in the context of the vicious practices of the Bombay police force. And when Anant does find himself facing discipline, the same shady palm-greasing that thwarts his own attempts to serve justice on Shetty now work to his benefit. The hypocrisy tears him apart.

Niahalani's telling of this bleak tale is deeply effective. With all his anger and flaws, Anant is a startlingly sympathetic character, with an anguished yearning to right his path, brought into sharp focus by his tender relationship with Jyotsna (Smita Patil), a college instructor with whom he shares philosophy and poetry. Jyotsna is Anant's respite from the vicious dark of his job; she seems to ground him in the world he wants to live in. But her hold isn't strong enough as the stresses mount; Anant begins drinking, even as a cautionary tale pops up now and again, in the form of a disgraced and pathetic ex-officer, an alcoholic named Lobo (Naseeruddin Shah), who cannot let go of the fantasy that he will someday get his job back.

Jyotsna observes Anant's increasing distress with a loving but skeptical eye; as he becomes more troubled and erratic, she gives him mamy chances but ultimately chooses to protect herself, rather than get more deeply involved with a man so clearly headed toward tragedy. This is an unusual sort of agency to see in films, where women are generally self-sacrificing and dedicated to shouldering any burden to benefit the men they love. Instead, Jyotsna chooses to liberate herself, and it is both a relief and a heartbreak. Anant too achieves a sort of liberation in the end, consistent with his principles but in a far more tragic mode.

These are just a few of the unflinching elements that make Ardh satya shine though all its hardness and grit. The film is like a police thriller in which the filmi elements have been stripped away, leaving gut punches in place of dishoom-dishoom, and raw feeling in the place of melodrama. In one scene, Anant and his colleagues visit a dank den in which a bar dancer wears an outfit and does moves that wouldn't be out of place in a Helen song. But the sparkly escapism of Helen's songs is drained out of the image; it's monochrome and dark, tinged with a sour kind of dread, and the men leer the way filmi villains do, even the sympathetic Anant. In scenes like this, turning movie tropes on their heads, Ardh satya gets right under the skin.

November 08, 2014

I am planning to give a collective report on my recent five-film Govinda marathon (I was calling it a binge, but marathon is a much more pleasant metaphor). But the last film of the five, Hatya, is so different, and so excellent, that it deserves comments of its own. Indeed, it's hard even to imagine how this film could share a post with a bunch of David Dhawan flicks.

Hatya is a thriller that makes minimal use of Govinda's comic skills, and yet showcases the breadth and depth of his talents. He does some dancing (and does it quite well, of course) but for the most part, he gives a serious and tender performance as a troubled man. His character, Sagar, has lost his wife and child, and has turned to drink an in attempt at slow suicide. In a very effective scene that signals how different Sagar is from the archetypical trickster of Govinda's comedy films, Sagar reveals a touching self-awareness as he tells a friend that he drinks in hopes of pickling himself to death, and picks fights with goons in hopes of being beaten to death. Sagar is a smart fellow, but not a happy one.

Most affecting in Govinda's performance is the tenderness Sagar shows when he takes in a deaf, dumb boy he names Raja (Sujitha). His Sagar is a man who wants to love and nurture, and is in agony because the world has taken away his chance to do that. There is redemption in caring for Raja, and Sagar takes to it fiercely, defending Raja almost like a mother bear. Raja responds to Sagar's intensity and the intensity of his Sagar's; the little boy is desperate for safety and protection and senses that Raja can provide both. Before meeting Sagar, Raja witnesses two murders, including that of his own mother. The killers, Surendra (Anupam Kher, in a small but chillingly sociopathic role) and Ranjit (Babu Antony), come after Raja, who cannot do more than gesticulate in vain attempts to tell Sagar what he has endured. Sagar senses the boy's anxiety, and bond created by their complementary needs - Raja's for security and stability, and Sagar's for something to do with his powerful instinct toward love and protection - is rendered sweetly and powerfully. It is the emotional heart of the film, and it is thoroughly riveting.

Hatya doesn't let you forget that it is a 1980s Hindi film or that it stars Govinda. It has a few songs, especially early on, that give him a chance to shake his stuff. Sagar is an engineering graduate and, judging by his home, a fairly wealthy fellow - but by the time the movie starts, his troubles have left him working as a professional wedding guest and cabaret dancer. There are silly filmi coincidences, too. Sagar is a gifted painter, which allows him to create a police-style suspect sketch of Ranjit just when one is needed. And the young woman Sapna (Neelam) who lives in Sagar's neighborhood and falls in love with him just happens to be the estranged sister of Raja's murdered mother. On top of all this, little too much of Sagar's arc of redemption is made explicit in windy, wordy dramatic speeches.

Don't forget it's the 80s!

But these are minor complaints against a movie that is for the most part taut and engaging and made with a great deal of craft. Kirti Kumar (Govinda's brother) supplements the fairly well-tuned script with the occasional arresting visual, a delicate bit of characterization, a subtlety in performance. From the tense, dark, dialogue-less opening sequence of the murders, it is clear that Hatya is wrought with attention to framing and mood. In one striking scene, Ranjit lures Raja down a hospital corridor with a motorized toy dog. The shot down the antiseptic hospital corridor is taken from floor level, the dog barking creepily in the foreground, Raja small and vulnerable in the chilly distance. And while there isn't a whole lot for women to do in Hatya, it is enjoyable that Sapna initiates the romance with Sagar, nervily declaring her feelings to Sagar. This isn't unheard of, but it isn't common, either. Sapna's love is stirred by the gentle tenderness that Sagar shows toward Raja, the same feeling that makes Sagar's story stand apart from usual thriller fare. The romance underscores Sagar's redemption arc, rather than distracting from it or seeming tacked on. Even the fight scenes are crafted with care - one of them is set to one of Bappi Lahiri's jaunty disco vamps, adding an almost humorous bounce to the drama. It all adds up to make Hatya a thoroughly satisfying film.

October 16, 2014

I have watched quite a few rotten movies out of love for Shabana Azmi. I did not enjoy the dour, crotchety Avtaar, which tries to send a message about respecting one's elders, and winds up just shaking its fist at kids today, those selfish, unfeeling jerks. Nor do I have much nice to say about the amateurish Morning Raga, which looks as if someone filmed Shabana ji giving a master class to a bunch of undertalented young actors. So Yeh nazdeekiyan is far from the worst film I have ever watched for the sake of Shabana-pyaar - that dubious distinction goes to the truly execrable Son of Pink Panther, with Gaja Gamini snagging honorable mention - but it is not much better than Avtaar or Morning Raga.

Yeh nazdeekiyan gets legitimate points for boldness - not the superficial boldness of its clutchy, gaspy sex scenes between Parveen Babi and Marc Zuber, but the more substantive boldness of a consensual open marriage, an idea that makes many people squirm even today, in east and west alike. And of course Shabana Azmi is perfect in it, in her familiar avatar of the wronged wife who discovers a self-actualized identity in the shards of a broken marriage. This is the kind of role that Aparna Sen said she could not give to Shabana ji, lest the casting spoil the story - because everyone knows how the arcs of such characters go when played by Shabana Azmi. But her performance is satisfying to watch all the same, understated, poised yet emotional. It is a comfortable space for both Shabana ji and her fans, Shabana Azmi comfort food.

She is the sine qua non of my love for Hindi films. Le sigh! Also her dad Kaifi Azmi has a great cameo.

But despite Shabana ji's best efforts at a delicate touch, too much of Yeh nazdeekiyan is ham-fisted, like those cringey sex scenes, or Marc Zuber's allegedly charming flirtations which ring stiff and false in both scripting and performance. And too much of it is rambly and simply not well-crafted enough for all its earnest ideas and its one good performance to hold the day. It means well, but makes the worst misstep a movie can make: it is boring.

Still, it has a few nice directorial touches. Here, reciprocal jealousy at two different points in the film, conveyed with parallel shots and cleverly-chosen book titles in the display.

In the beginning of the film, Shobhana (Azmi) and Sunil (Zuber) share a marriage that seems buoyant with both passion and love. Sunil, an advertising director, is something of a philanderer. At first it seems Shobhana is being played, but when a friend confronts her about it, Shobhana astonishingly explains that Sunil's excursions do not concern her. That's just a matter of the body, she says. She has Sunil's heart, which is the important thing.

But Sunil's heart does soon stray toward one of his dalliances, or at least he thinks it does, for a while. The woman is Kiran (Parveen Babi), a sriracha-hot model whom Sunil is shooting for one of his commercials. When they meet, Kiran's friends dare her to make a pass at Sunil. But he is cold to her advances, and the snub drives Kiran to an obsession with winning his attention. In other words, Kiran falls for Sunil only because he shows no interest in her at all. This is an ugh-worthy way to write a female character and a romance. I have to acknowledge, though, that it is not entirely unrealistic - this sort of thing does happen. And so I cannot accuse Yeh nazdeekiyan of lazy scriptwriting on this score, just unappealing scriptwriting.

But, Parveen Babi! On the beach! In slow motion!

And speaking of unappealing, Marc Zuber is about as uncharismatic a wet noodle of an actor as one could cast opposite the presence of Shabana Azmi and the breathless heat of Parveen Babi. He broods, he mopes, he sets his jaw; it's not even an unconvincing performance so much as it is an uninteresting one. Coupled with the weak foundation of Sunil's relationship with Kiran, Zuber's flatness drains the energy from a movie that seems to plod on for weeks.

The message of Yeh nazdeekiyan seems to be that the deep bond of love that is formed of a true understanding between two people is of more value than a superficially shiny attraction, however passionate. Shabana Azmi has said that she thought Yeh nazdeekiyan, with its forgiveness and reconciliation, would be a surefire hit, but she later found that the ending of Arth resonated more strongly with women in the audience yearning for a reflection of their frustrations. (Arth is also a better movie in every aspect of its execution by a long way, so the comparison is not entirely rigorous.) In Arth, Shabana Azmi's character choose not to return to her husband and her old life, after learning to her surprise that she could provide for herself and live fulfilled and contented without a husband. In Yeh nazdeekiyan, Shobhana learns these things too, launching a successful music career after she leaves Sunil. But she still elects to take him back when he asks her to.

That is not an entirely unfeminist ending; Shobhana makes the choice freely, without loss of agency, and there is nothing to suggest her career will not continue once the marriage is repaired. So perhaps Yeh nazdeekiyan escapes the reset-button criticism that has been leveled at another self-discovery story, English Vinglish, in which Sridevi's character's self-actualization comes to an end upon her cheerful return to an apparently unaltered version of her previous life. The difference there is that while Sridevi's character learns a lot about herself during the movie, her husband does not; there is no parallel narrative for him. In Yeh nazdeekiyan, to its credit, Sunil learns lessons of his own. He starts the movie with an acknowledged roving eye, and ends with a greater understanding of the precious and unique relationship he has with Shobhana. Ironically, the most feminist aspect of Yeh nazdeeekiyan may be wrapped up in this point: The defeat of patriarchal oppression requires not only the awakening of women, but the profound changing of men.

June 21, 2014

There is much that can be said about Coolie, a stellar exemplar of the socially meaningful masala movie. It is a rich text packed with social commentary, in which the working poor organize and strike against rich, corrupt, and cruel-hearted bosses. It is loaded with masala archetypes, symbols of brotherly and motherly love, religious iconography, unlikely coincidences and grand-scale tragedies, the goofy non-literalism of filmi medicine. And it's long on the kind of entertainment one expects from Manmohan Desai films, superstars palling around and one-upping each other in songs, villains occupying posh and outrageously decorated spaces, romance and charisma and dishoom-dishoom.

The titualar coolie Iqbal (Amitabh Bachchan) is, as you might expect, a charismatic figure with a traumatic past. As a boy, Iqbal is separated from his mother Salma (Waheeda Rehman) during a tragic flood engineered by a narcissistic and entitled millionaire, Zafar Khan (Kader Khan), who kidnaps Salma, traumatized into muteness and amnesia, for his own. Iqbal grows into the de facto leader of a group of coolies. He organizes them against Zafar's attempt to cheat them out of a promised housing development, and leads a dramatic strike in which one by one they throw their badges to the ground, beginning with Iqbal's own 786, of course (cf. Deewaar).

Iqbal befriends a drunken and sympathetic newspaper reporter, Sunny (Rishi Kapoor), who has ambitions of breaking the big story of the coolies' strike. Sunny was raised by Iqbal's mother; Zafar believed that abducting a child for her to raise would ease her trauma, or at least his conscience. At any rate, of course neither Iqbal nor Sunny know for most of the movie that they share a mother, leading to some of the film's many almost-but-not-quite reveals. In one fantastic shot Sunny and Iqbal share reminiscences of their beloved mothers; Sunny keeps a photograph of her inside his typewriter, and Iqbal sits beside it, framed with the portrait, but never seeing the photo.

Coolie is a rich meta-text, too. As is well known, Amitabh Bachchan was seriously injured when the timing of a choreographed fight scene went wrong; he took a full-strength punch to the gut from Puneet Issar. For months during Amitabh's recovery, crowds gathered near his home and prayed for his health. This fact alone says much about the place Amitabh Bachchan occupies among the many gods worshiped in India. Even more telling is the astonishing breaking of the fourth wall that occurs in Coolie itself; the action stops during the fateful scene, and an overlay tells us (in three scripts, so that everyone who can read can understand) that this is the very moment at which Mr Bachchan sustained the terrible injury.

It is difficult to imagine the story taking second seat to the actor in any other circumstance. Film is already a medium in which much suspension of disbelief is required; Hindi film arguably moreso, and the genre of Hindi film to which Coolie belongs, masala, most of all. Yet when it is the life of Amitabh Bachchan on the line, the audience is asked to suspend its suspension of disbelief for a moment, to pay respect to this legend among men and the sacrifices he makes to bring us a good story.

In addition to this worship of Amitabh Bachchan, worship of God is a powerful theme in Coolie. But in contrast to Manmohan Desai's masterpieces of syncretism, Amar Akbar Anthonyand Naseeb, the God that is present in Coolie is unequivocally Allah. This is no doctrinally-vague Bhagwan. Allah literally drops from the sky, in the form of a Koran that falls from the rafters of a flooded home into the boy Iqbal's arms, letting him know he is not alone; in an inscribed prayer that tips off a lintel and clocks Salma on the head, restoring her memory; in a preternatural circle of lightning, summoned by Iqbal's fervent prayer, that encircles Salma with divine vivifying energy. Allah even flies through the sky, in the form of the super-intelligent falcon called Allah Rakha (“Allah the protector”), who repeatedly swoops in to save our heroes from one scrape after another.

Over and over again Allah descends from heaven to grant his blessings to the good guys in Coolie. In the climactic fight scene between Iqbal and Zafar Khan, which takes place in a Muslim shrine, a silken shroud embroidered with the name of Allah blows off an altar and drapes itself protectively around Iqbal's body, rendering him immune to the bullets from Zafar's gun. Desai's trademark syncretism appears only at the very end of the film, where various characters pray to a diverse array of gods, and Krishna, Jesus, Sai Baba and the rest all contribute to Iqbal's recovery from the wounds he sustained in his defeat of Zafar.

There are weaknesses in Coolie that make it less a perfect masala specimen than films like Amar Akbar Anthony or Parvarish; like Naseeb, it suffers from dime-store heroines, a common place to cut corners in masala films. At least Naseeb had the gorgeous sparkle and presence of Hema Malini to make up for the relative dullness of Reena Roy and Kim; here, there is no relief from Rati Agnihotri and Shoma Anand, who are both so unmemorable that it is difficult to tell them apart as the story progresses. One of them (I think it's Rati Agnihotri) gets a little bit of a revenge plot, but it is mostly filler. They are there because heroes need heroines to dance around trees with, else how do you get the flavor of romance into your masala? But their blandness doesn't matter much; Coolie is Amitabh Bachchan's film all the way, and that's just fine. Accept that truth, and you are rewarded with satisfying masala, worthy of the Desai name, and with plenty to chew on, whether watched purely for its fun, or the pleasure of examining all its textual levels.

May 23, 2014

For reasons that are mostly coincidence, I watched three 1980s masala flicks in the space of a little over a week. All three had Kader Khan write them and act in them. Two of the three had Rajnikanth in them; two had Amitabh; two had Amrish Puri; two had Shakti Kapoor; two had Bappi Lahiri scores. And so I had to write them up quickly before the three films became blended into one giant protein-enriched masala smoothie in my brain.

I've written about Naseeb and Geraftaar already, and now turn to the most unlikely of the three: Gangvaa. Here's how it happened.

Beth: @carla_filmigeek I did not - I thought I should watch it with YOU.

A true friend! So Beth and I watched Gangvaa, starring Rajnikanth and Shabana Azmi. Starring Rajnikanth and Shabana Azmi. I want to repeat that and let it sink in, because despite nearly a decade of adoring Shabana Azmi and exploring the ins and outs of her career, I somehow had not really processed that such a thing existed. I've seen a respectable amount of Shabana Azmi's mainstream work. I've also seen a fair amount of her work in dire and terrible films. I've even put myself through the agony of Son of Pink Panther out of pure love for her.

But Shabana starring opposite Rajnikanth, that stylized superstar who is even larger than larger than life? That is a whole new level of pleasing cognitive dissonance. Gangvaa was a film I simply had to see, even without subtitles. What we got was a film that was more enjoyable, and made with more attention to craft, than either one of us particularly expected.

This really exists.

The basic injustice at the core of Gangvaa is the way the landed classes take advantage of ordinary village folk. Early on in the film, a work crew finds a pot full of gold coins (these are delightful yellow-painted circles of cardboard, near as I can tell), and a suitably mustache-twirling zamindar (Amrish Puri) confiscates them to add to his already massive wealth. Enter Gangvaa (Rajnikanth) to save the day; like a classical mythological warrior, he makes his first appearance in the film riding a chariot.

I couldn't get a good screengrab of the chariot, but here's the man a couple moments later.

Gangvaa punches and kicks his way through the zamindar's goons, and quickly dispatches the zamindar to an early exit (presumably freeing Amrish Puri to move on to the set next door where he can play the same villain in some other masala movie). There is a satisfying, if gruesome, spatter of blood on the camera lens to mark the zamindar's final moment on earth. And Rajnikanth's trademark fighting style is such an undeniable thrill to watch, even for someone like me who is not a big fan of dishoom-dishoom. He delivers multiple punches of bone-crunching force without moving his arm - it really is all in the wrist, I guess.

Gangvaa puts together a band of the men who had suffered under the zamindar's tyrrany. Together they hang out in the wilderness and perform Robin-Hood-esque raids for the sake of vigilante justice. At some point Jamna (Shabana Azmi) encounters Gangvaa and is smitten. Then a village girl accuses Gangvaa of rape, and Jamna is enraged - it is here that she gets the vigorously indignant speech that marks Shabana Azmi's movies of this time period, the kind of speech without which one presumes should would not have accepted the role.

But indignation looks so good on her.

It turns out that the rape was actually done by a totally different guy named Gangvaa (Raza Murad), and righting this wrong wins Jamna back for our hero, but makes him a new set of enemies that he spends the rest of the film fleeing from. Also on his tail is an upstanding police inspector in the handsome form of Suresh Oberoi, who cannot allow vigilante justice in his district, no matter how noble the intention. Actually I am not sure that Oberoi's character is the archetypical blemishless uncorruptible officer - having watched Gangvaa without subtitles I am sure I missed some nuance. It is possible that I am merely projecting Oberoi's character from Tezaab on this film. But I'm pretty sure I have it right.

Suresh Oberoi's resemblance to Vivek is stronger in Gangvaa than I've noticed before. Suresh is much better-looking though.

There is a certain grimness to 80s masala movies from which Gangvaa does not shy. There are several distressing suicides. One is quite unexpected; two are commited by characters who would evidently rather die than give up information about Gangvaa. That's the kind of loyalty that only Rajnikanth can inspire.

Gangvaa also features some very creative violence and action, like a scene where a disposable goonda is strapped to a rotating wagon wheel. In one particularly well-crafted highlight, Gangvaa is strung up by his ankles; he frees himself by grabbing a burning candle in his mouth and contorting his limber body until the candle's flame contacts the rope he's suspended from.

I'm glad I watched Gangvaa. I really did need to have the experience of seeing Shabana Azmi paired with Rajnikanth. This was in fact my first exposure to Rajnikanth - I watched it before Geraftaar - and as I noted in my review of that film, I get it. His presence is enormous, and thrilling.

The movie packs a wollop of a surprise ending. I won't spoil it here but it's not a happy one, even though it provides more opportunity for Shabana Azmi to get her sexy rage on. Despite this, Gangvaa is not a bad way to pass a rainy afternoon. Good songs, good character actors, and Rajnikanth eating an apple off a knife blade. Set expectations accordingly, and Gangvaa is pretty enjoyable.

Text (c) 2006-2014, Carla Miriam Levy.
The ideas and opinions expressed in this weblog are mine alone, and do not represent the views of my employer or of any other organization with which I may be associated.